Soccer Balls and Tracking Chips

Guest Author - Lisa Shea

On one hand it could mean absolutely perfect calls. On the other hand, a bug could cause the destruction of a team's record. Should soccer balls have tracking chips in them?

Imagine if you will your traditional soccer ball - about 69cm in circumfrence, about 430g in weight. Now imagine that a chip was in its very center, so that its exact movement could be tracked by computers around the edge of the field. Referees could know exactly when the ball crossed the goal line, when it went out of bounds, and numerous other situations.

In fact, the ball could easily be highlighted by news broadcasters, turning red or green depending on the chip signal.

Would this be a good thing for the sport? Would it mean that we no longer yelled at the ref for making a bad call? Or would it only open up the accusations of someone hacking into the system, or of computer glitches causing problems. Maybe sometimes a pair of good eyes is far better than a chip being kicked and headed every few seconds.

What do you think? Should official games move to a chip system? Chime in with your opinion in our forums!